Surreal thoughts fly out of his mouth at rapid speed as he veers from one topic to another.

In the past, his shows have included discussions on the best way to secure a facemask made of meat and the unique difficulties one faces when tasked with covering an owl with a blanket.

And so far, this conversation is turning out to be no less bizarre or hilarious.

Here to talk about his new TV series, Ross Noble's Australian Trip, the comedian explains that he spent five months travelling around Oz on his motorbike as part of an 85-show tour in 2007.

On his BMW RS 1150 Adventure motorbike, Noble covered a massive 16,000 miles, eschewing all other methods of transport.

"We decided we were doing it on motorbikes after we had planned the tour, so we didn't do it in a sensible order," he explains.

"We started in Brisbane, then went right across, 2,000km, to Broken Hill, then looped down to Victoria, then back up to Newcastle, and then across to Adelaide. It was the equivalent of being in Brighton, then Aberdeen, then Liverpool, then Ipswich.

"Australia is just so big, people don't realise," he adds.

"It's about the size of North America, and I think the UK fits into it 65 times. When I was crossing the Nullarbor Plain, the longest straight road in the world, I put my GPS on and it said 'Ride for 3,000 miles. Then turn left'."

Noble's tour takes viewers to some of Oz's most obscure corners.

"My favourite was Kryal Castle," he says enthusiastically. "It's owned by a guy who's obsessed with medieval stuff. He built a castle on this plot of land in the Sixties and declared himself King Keith of Kryal Castle.

"He walks around dressed as a king, and there's this bit where he's got a medical display which has absolutely nothing to do with medieval times. There's an iron lung there and a waxwork of a woman in stirrups. It's the oddest tourist attraction ever.

"He'd also dressed some dummies up as doctors and there's a waxwork of Charles Bronson there. I said, 'Is that Charles Bronson?' and he said, really proudly, 'Oh yeah'. Stuff like that is amazing.

"Australia borrows so much culture from the rest of the world - the best bits - but how it comes together doesn't always make sense. Like I was riding down this amazingly long road and there was just a huge vandalised statue of a Smurf in the middle of the road.

"That's what I love about the place."

Ross is a wonderful raconteur. Talking, as he does on stage, without scripts or prepared material, the 33-year-old originally from Cramlington in Northumberland, just lets rip.

With his wild gestures and vivid explanations, delivered with his comforting North East twang, you can see why comedy fans all over the world consider him to be one of the funniest, most original comics working today.

When Ross appeared on Live At The Apollo, one of his few TV appearances, he remarked how his Australian wife Fran occasionally opens a terrible can of worms when she asks him, 'What are you thinking?'.

Riding along for hours on end with no one to talk to, Ross admits things got pretty weird inside his mind during his Australian adventure.

Accompanied by his camera man and tour manager, Ross and his small team would ride from dawn to dusk, arriving at their destination just in time for his performance.

Noble says that there were spells when they wouldn't see another soul for two days, or gigs would be so far apart it would mean travelling for three days to get to the next venue.

"It's somehow worse because you're wearing a helmet," he says, laughing. "It's like all the thoughts are trapped inside. I would have these weird circular thoughts, triggered by things I was passing.

"Most of the farms and houses we passed on deserted roads had mailboxes at the bottom of their drives. Some people would decorate them to look like Ned Kelly's metal mask, or others would be shaped like cows.

"I'd see a cow one and think, 'It's a letter cow. Would they be part of a letter herd? Would you milk a letter cow? How would you do it? And would stamps come out?'. 10 minutes down the road I'd be yelling, 'Stop it!' at myself, but then I'd see another one and I'd be wondering if the two mailboxes were friends," he continues.

"Then I'd be singing to whatever key the engine was in. I think having music on is cheating, so I didn't really use my iPod. But then I'd get a song in my head and I'd realise I'd been singing a little bit of it for three hours. It's not like when you're in a car and someone tells you to shut up.

"So I'd be singing, talking to myself as well, even to the point of saying things like, 'Ooh, look at that' or, 'That's lovely' if I saw some mountain range or some nice scenery."

Ross's odd, rambling thoughts weren't the only thing he had to overcome while in Australia.

There was, of course, the heat, made worse by the many layers of protective clothing he was wearing and his level of tiredness, increased by the sheer length and monotonous nature of the drives, and the need to be ever vigilant.

At night, he says kangaroos line the road like bouncing obstacles. But hit one, and you'll be in big trouble.

"I came very close to hitting an emu too. They come running alongside you and just dart out into the road. You have no idea where they're going to go. I quickly learnt they travel in pairs too, so if you manage to avoid the first one, there's still a second that can get you," he says.

He might be laughing now, but his expression hints that he didn't find it funny at the time.

"There was one day I came around a corner and a cow was just in the middle of the road staring at me. Luckily it was on the other side of the road, but I got close. I could have stroked it as I went past.

"There were a few times things could have gone nasty like that, but we made it through without any disasters.

"My nerves were absolutely shot by the end of it."

Ross Noble - Extra time

Ross Noble was born on February 5, 1976.

He discovered he was dyslexic when he was 11, and upon doing so decided he didn't want a career that involved academic skills.

He was nominated for the prestigious Perrier Award at the 1999 Edinburgh Festival, and has won many others prizes, including a Time Out award in 2000.

In 2006, he was involved in a motorbike crash in which he fractured his collar bone. Fortunately, the crash was just outside a hospital.

He has an Australian wife, Fran. They have a daughter together, Elfie.